Mort (4 page)

It is a fact that although the Death of the Discworld is, in his own words, an
ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION
, he long ago gave up using the traditional skeletal horses, because of the bother of having to stop all the time to wire bits back on. Now his horses were always flesh-and-blood beasts, from the finest stock.

And, Mort learned, very well fed.

Some jobs offer increments. This one offered—well, quite the reverse, but at least it was in the warm and fairly easy to get the hang of. After a while he got into the rhythm of it, and started playing the private little quantity-surveying game that everyone plays in these circumstances. Let’s see, he thought, I’ve done nearly a quarter, let’s call it a third, so when I’ve done
that
corner by the hayrack it’ll be more than half, call it five-eighths, which means three more wheelbarrow loads…. It doesn’t prove anything very much except that the awesome splendor of the universe is much easier to deal with if you think of it as a series of small chunks.

The horse watched him from its stall, occasionally trying to eat his hair in a friendly sort of way.

After a while he became aware that someone else was watching him. The girl Ysabell was leaning on the half-door, her chin in her hands.

“Are you a servant?” she said.

Mort straightened up.

“No,” he said, “I’m an apprentice.”

“That’s silly. Albert said you can’t be an apprentice.”

Mort concentrated on hefting a shovelful into the wheelbarrow. Two more shovelfuls, call it three if it’s well pressed down, and that means four more barrows, all right, call it five, before I’ve done halfway to the…

“He says,” said Ysabell in a louder voice, “that apprentices become masters, and you can’t have more than one Death. So you’re just a servant and you have to do what I say.”

…and then eight more barrows means it’s all done all the way to the door, which is nearly two-thirds of the whole thing, which means….

“Did you hear what I said, boy?”

Mort nodded. And then it’ll be fourteen more barrows, only call it fifteen because I haven’t swept up properly in the corner, and….

“Have you lost your tongue?”

“Mort,” said Mort mildly.

She looked at him furiously. “What?”

“My name is Mort,” said Mort. “Or Mortimer. Most people call me Mort. Did you want to talk to me about something?”

She was speechless for a moment, staring from his face to the shovel and back again.

“Only I’ve been told to get on with this,” said Mort.

She exploded.

“Why are you here? Why did Father bring you here?”

“He hired me at the hiring fair,” said Mort. “All the boys got hired. And me.”

“And you wanted to be hired?” she snapped. “He’s Death, you know. The Grim Reaper. He’s very important. He’s not something you
become
, he’s something you
are
.”

Mort gestured vaguely at the wheelbarrow.

“I expect it’ll turn out for the best,” he said. “My father always says things generally do.”

He picked up the shovel and turned away, and grinned at the horse’s backside as he heard Ysabell snort and walk away.

Mort worked steadily through the sixteenths, eighths, quarters and thirds, wheeling the barrow out through the yard to the heap by the apple tree.

Death’s garden was big, neat and well-tended. It was also very, very black. The grass was black. The flowers were black. Black apples gleamed among the black leaves of a black apple tree. Even the air looked inky.

After a while Mort thought he could see—no, he couldn’t possibly imagine he could see…different colors of black.

That’s to say, not simply very dark tones of red and green and whatever, but real shades of black. A whole spectrum of colors, all different and all—well, black. He tipped out the last load, put the barrow away, and went back to the house.

E
NTER
.

Death was standing behind a lectern, poring over a map. He looked at Mort as if he wasn’t entirely there.

Y
OU HAVEN’T HEARD OF THE
B
AY
OF M
ANTE, HAVE YOU
? he said.

“No, sir,” said Mort.

F
AMOUS SHIPWRECK THERE
.

“Was there?”

T
HERE WILL BE
, said Death,
IF
I
CAN FIND THE DAMN PLACE
.

Mort walked around the lectern and peered at the map.

“You’re going to sink the ship?” he said.

Death looked horrified.

C
ERTAINLY NOT
. T
HERE WILL BE A COMBINATION OF BAD SEAMANSHIP, SHALLOW WATER AND A CONTRARY WIND
.

“That’s horrible,” said Mort. “Will there be many drowned?”

T
HAT’S UP TO FATE
, said Death, turning to the bookcase behind him and pulling out a heavy gazetteer. T
HERE’S NOTHING
I
CAN DO ABOUT IT
. W
HAT IS THAT SMELL
?

“Me,” said Mort, simply.

A
H
. T
HE STABLES
. Death paused, his hand on the spine of the book. A
ND WHY DO YOU THINK
I
DIRECTED YOU TO THE STABLES
? T
HINK CAREFULLY, NOW
.

Mort hesitated. He
had
been thinking carefully, in between counting wheelbarrows. He’d wondered if it had been to coordinate his hand and eye, or teach him the habit of obedience, or bring home to him the importance, on the human scale, of small tasks, or make him realize that even great men must start at the bottom. None of these explanations seemed exactly right.

“I think…” he began.

Y
ES
?

“Well, I think it was because you were up to your knees in horseshit, to tell you the truth.”

Death looked at him for a long time. Mort shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

A
BSOLUTELY CORRECT
, snapped Death. C
LARITY OF THOUGHT
. R
EALISTIC APPROACH
. V
ERY IMPORTANT IN A JOB LIKE OURS
.

“Yes, sir. Sir?”

H
MM
? Death was struggling with the index.

“People die all the time, sir, don’t they? Millions. You must be very busy. But—”

Death gave Mort the look he was coming to be familiar with. It started off as blank surprise, flickered briefly towards annoyance, called in for a drink at recognition and settled finally on vague forbearance.

B
UT
?

“I’d have thought you’d have been, well, out and about a bit more. You know. Stalking the streets. My granny’s almanack’s got a picture of you with a scythe and stuff.”

I
SEE
. I
AM AFRAID IT IS HARD TO EXPLAIN UNLESS YOU KNOW ABOUT POINT INCARNATION AND NODE FOCUSING
. I
DON’T EXPECT YOU DO
?

“I don’t think so.”

G
ENERALLY
I’
M ONLY EXPECTED TO MAKE AN ACTUAL APPEARANCE ON SPECIAL OCCASIONS
.

“Like a king, I suppose,” said Mort. “I mean, a king is reigning even when he’s doing something else or asleep, even. Is that it, sir?”

I
T’LL DO
, said Death, rolling up the maps. A
ND NOW, BOY, IF YOU’VE FINISHED THE STABLE YOU CAN GO AND SEE IF
A
LBERT HAS ANY JOBS HE WANTS DOING
. I
F YOU LIKE, YOU CAN COME OUT ON THE ROUND WITH ME THIS EVENING
.

Mort nodded. Death went back to his big leather book, took up a pen, stared at it for a moment, and then looked up at Mort with his skull on one side.

H
AVE YOU MET MY DAUGHTER
? he said.

“Er. Yes, sir,” said Mort, his hand on the doorknob.

S
HE IS A VERY PLEASANT GIRL
, said Death, B
UT
I
THINK SHE QUITE LIKES HAVING SOMEONE OF HER OWN AGE AROUND TO TALK TO
.

“Sir?”

A
ND, OF COURSE, ONE DAY ALL THIS WILL BELONG TO HER
.

Something like a small blue supernova flared for a moment in the depths of his eyesockets. It dawned on Mort that, with some embarrassment and complete lack of expertise, Death was trying to wink.

In a landscape that owed nothing to time and space, which appeared on no map, which existed only in those far reaches of the multiplexed cosmos known to the few astrophysicists who have taken really bad acid, Mort spent the afternoon helping Albert plant out broccoli. It was black, tinted with purple.

“He tries, see,” said Albert, flourishing the dibber. “It’s just that when it comes to color, he hasn’t got much imagination.”

“I’m not sure I understand all this,” said Mort. “Did you say he
made
all this?”

Beyond the garden wall the ground dropped towards a deep valley and then rose into dark moorland that marched all the way to distant mountains, jagged as cats’ teeth.

“Yeah,” said Albert. “Mind what you’re doing with that watering can.”

“What was here before?”

“I dunno,” said Albert, starting a fresh row. “Firmament, I suppose. That’s the fancy name for raw nothing. It’s not a very good job of work, to tell the truth. I mean, the garden’s okay, but the mountains are downright shoddy. They’re all fuzzy when you get up close. I went and had a look once.”

Mort squinted hard at the trees nearest him. They seemed commendably solid.

“What’d he do it all for?” he said.

Albert grunted. “Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?”

Mort thought for a moment.

“No,” he said eventually, “what?”

There was silence.

Then Albert straightened up and said, “Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve ’em right.”

“He said I could go out with him tonight,” said Mort.

“You’re a lucky boy then, aren’t you,” said Albert vaguely, heading back for the cottage.

“Did he
really
make all this?” said Mort, tagging along after him.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I suppose he wanted somewhere where he could feel at home.”

“Are you dead, Albert?”

“Me? Do I look dead?” The old man snorted when Mort started to give him a slow, critical look. “And you can stop that. I’m as alive as you are. Probably more.”

“Sorry.”

“Right.” Albert pushed open the back door, and turned to regard Mort as kindly as he could manage.

“It’s best not to ask all these questions,” he said, “it upsets people. Now, how about a nice fry-up?”

The bell rang while they were playing dominoes. Mort sat to attention.

“He’ll want the horse made ready,” said Albert. “Come on.”

They went out to the stable in the gathering dusk, and Mort watched the old man saddle up Death’s horse.

“His name’s Binky,” said Albert, fastening the girth. “It just goes to show, you never can tell.”

Binky tried to eat his scarf in an affectionate way.

Mort remembered the woodcut in his grandmother’s almanack, between the page on planting times and the phases of the moon section, showing Dethe thee Great Levyller Comes To Alle Menne. He’d stared at it hundreds of times when learning his letters. It wouldn’t have been half so impressive if it had been generally known that the flame-breathing horse the specter rode was called Binky.

“I would have thought something like Fang or Sabre or Ebony,” Albert continued, “but the master will have his little fancies, you know. Looking forward to it, are you?”

“I think so,” said Mort uncertainly. “I’ve never seen Death actually at work.”

“Not many have,” said Albert. “Not twice, at any rate.”

Mort took a deep breath.

“About this daughter of his—” he began.

A
H
. G
OOD EVENING
, A
LBERT, BOY
.

“Mort,” said Mort automatically.

Death strode into the stable, stooping a little to clear the ceiling. Albert nodded, not in any subservient way, Mort noticed, but simply out of form. Mort had met one or two servants, on the rare occasions he’d been taken into town, and Albert wasn’t like any of them. He seemed to act as though the house really belonged to him and its owner was just a passing guest, something to be tolerated like peeling paintwork or spiders in the lavatory. Death put up with it too, as though he and Albert had said everything that needed to be said a long time ago and were simply content, now, to get on with their jobs with the minimum of inconvenience all round. To Mort it was rather like going for a walk after a really bad thunderstorm—everything was quite fresh, nothing was particularly unpleasant, but there was the sense of vast energies just expended.

Finding out about Albert tagged itself on to the end of his list of things to do.

H
OLD THIS
, said Death, and pushed a scythe into his hand while he swung himself up on to Binky. The scythe looked normal enough, except for the blade: it was so thin that Mort could see through it, a pale blue shimmer in the air that could slice flame and chop sound. He held it very carefully.

R
IGHT, BOY
, said Death. C
OME ON UP
. A
LBERT
. D
ON’T WAIT UP
.

The horse trotted out of the courtyard and into the sky.

There should have been a flash or rush of stars. The air should have spiralled and turned into speeding sparks such as normally happens in the common, everyday trans-dimensional hyper-jumps. But this was Death, who has mastered the art of going everywhere without ostentation and could slide between dimensions as easily as he could slip through a locked door, and they moved at an easy gallop through cloud canyons, past great billowing mountains of cumulus, until the wisps parted in front of them and the Disc lay below, basking in sunlight.

T
HAT’S BECAUSE TIME IS ADJUSTABLE
, said Death, when Mort pointed this out. I
T’S NOT REALLY IMPORTANT
.

“I always thought it was.”

P
EOPLE THINK IT’S IMPORTANT ONLY BECAUSE THEY INVENTED IT
, said Death somberly. Mort considered this rather trite, but decided not to argue.

“What are we going to do now?” he said.

T
HERE’S A PROMISING WAR IN
K
LATCHISTAN
, said Death. S
EVERAL PLAGUE OUTBREAKS
. O
NE RATHER IMPORTANT ASSASSINATION, IF YOU’D PREFER
.

“What, a murder?”

A
YE, A KING.

“Oh, kings,” said Mort dismissively. He knew about kings. Once a year a band of strolling players, or at any rate ambling ones, came to Sheepridge and the plays, they performed were invariably about kings. Kings were always killing one another, or being killed. The plots were quite complicated, involving mistaken identity, poisons, battles, long-lost sons, ghosts, witches and, usually, lots of daggers. Since it was clear that being a king was no picnic it was amazing that half the cast were apparently trying to become one. Mort’s idea of palace life was a little hazy, but he imagined that no one got much sleep.

“I’d quite like to see a real king,” he said. “They wear crowns all the time, my granny said. Even when they go to the lavatory.”

Death considered this carefully.

T
HERE’S NO TECHNICAL REASON WHY NOT
, he conceded. I
N MY EXPERIENCE, HOWEVER, IT IS GENERALLY NOT THE CASE
.

The horse wheeled, and the vast flat checkerboard of the Sto plain sped underneath them at lightning speed. This was rich country, full of silt and rolling cabbage fields and neat little kingdoms whose boundaries wriggled like snakes as small, formal wars, marriage pacts, complex alliances and the occasional bit of sloppy cartography changed the political shape of the land.

“This king,” said Mort, as a forest zipped beneath them, “is he good or bad?”

I
NEVER CONCERN MYSELF WITH SUCH THINGS
, Said Death. H
E’S NO WORSE THAN ANY OTHER KING
, I
IMAGINE
.

“Does he have people put to death?” said Mort, and remembering who he was talking to added, “Saving y’honor’s presence, of course.”

S
OMETIMES
. T
HERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU HAVE TO DO, WHEN YOU’RE A KING
.

A city slid below them, clustered around a castle built on a rock outcrop that poked up out of the plain like a geological pimple. It was one huge rock from the distant Ramtops, Death said, left there by the retreating ice in the legendary days when the Ice Giants waged war on the gods and rode their glaciers across the land in an attempt to freeze the whole world. They’d given up in the end, however, and driven their great glittering flocks back to their hidden lands among the razor-backed mountains near the Hub. No one on the plains knew why they had done this; it was generally considered by the younger generation in the city of Sto Lat, the city around the rock, that it was because the place was dead boring.

Binky trotted down over nothingness and touched down on the flagstones of the castle’s topmost tower. Death dismounted and told Mort to sort out the nosebag.

“Won’t people notice there’s a horse up here?” he said, as they strolled to a stairwell.

Death shook his head.

W
OULD YOU BELIEVE THERE COULD BE A HORSE AT THE TOP OF THIS TOWER
? he said.

“No. You couldn’t get one up these stairs,” said Mort.

W
ELL, THEN
?

“Oh. I see. People don’t want to see what can’t possibly exist.”

W
ELL DONE
.

Now they were walking along a wide corridor hung with tapestries. Death reached into his robe and pulled out an hourglass, peering closely at it in the dim light.

It was a particularly fine one, its glass cut into intricate facets and imprisoned in an ornate framework of wood and brass. The words “King Olerve the Bastard” were engraved deeply into it.

The sand inside sparkled oddly. There wasn’t a lot left.

Death hummed to himself and stowed the glass away in whatever mysterious recess it had occupied.

They turned a corner and hit a wall of sound. There was a hall full of people there, under a cloud of smoke and chatter that rose all the way up into the banner-haunted shadows in the roof. Up in a gallery a trio of minstrels were doing their best to be heard and not succeeding.

The appearance of Death didn’t cause much of a stir. A footman by the door turned to him, opened his mouth and then frowned in a distracted way and thought of something else. A few courtiers glanced in their direction, their eyes instantly unfocusing as common sense overruled the other five.

W
E’VE GOT A FEW MINUTES
, said Death, taking a drink from a passing tray. L
ET’S MINGLE
.

“They can’t see me either!” said Mort. “But I’m real!”

R
EALITY IS NOT ALWAYS WHAT IT SEEMS
, said Death. A
NYWAY, IF THEY DON’T WANT TO SEE ME, THEY CERTAINLY DON’T WANT TO SEE YOU
. T
HESE ARE ARISTOCRATS, BOY
. T
HEY’RE GOOD AT NOT SEEING THINGS
. W
HY IS THERE A CHERRY ON A STICK IN THIS DRINK
?

“Mort,” said Mort automatically.

I
T’S NOT AS IF IT DOES ANYTHING FOR THE FLAVOR
. W
HY DOES ANYONE TAKE A PERFECTLY GOOD DRINK AND THEN PUT IN A CHERRY ON A POLE
?

“What’s going to happen next?” said Mort. An elderly earl bumped into his elbow, looked everywhere but directly at him, shrugged and walked away.

T
AKE THESE THINGS, NOW
, said Death, fingering a passing canape. I
MEAN, MUSHROOMS YES, CHICKEN YES, CREAM YES
, I’
VE NOTHING AGAINST ANY OF THEM, BUT WHY IN THE NAME OF SANITY MINCE THEM ALL UP AND PUT THEM IN LITTLE PASTRY CASES
?

“Pardon?” said Mort.

T
HAT’S MORTALS FOR YOU
, Death continued. T
HEY’VE ONLY GOT A FEW YEARS IN THIS WORLD AND THEY SPEND THEM ALL IN MAKING THINGS COMPLICATED FOR THEMSELVES
. F
ASCINATING
. H
AVE A GHERKIN
.

“Where’s the king?” said Mort, craning to look over the heads of the court.

C
HAP WITH THE GOLDEN BEARD
, said Death. He tapped a flunky on the shoulder, and as the man turned and looked around in puzzlement deftly piloted another drink from his tray.

Mort cast around until he saw the figure standing in a little group in the center of the crowd, leaning over slightly the better to hear what a rather short courtier was saying to him. He was a tall, heavily-built man with the kind of stolid, patient face that one would confidently buy a used horse from.

“He doesn’t look a
bad
king,” said Mort. “Why would anyone want to kill him?”

S
EE THE MAN NEXT TO HIM
? W
ITH THE LITTLE MOUSTACHE AND THE GRIN LIKE A LIZARD
? Death pointed with his scythe.

“Yes?”

H
IS COUSIN, THE
D
UKE OF
S
TO
H
ELIT
. N
OT THE NICEST OF PEOPLE
, said Death. A
HANDY MAN WITH A BOTTLE OF POISON
. F
IFTH IN LINE TO THE THRONE LAST YEAR, NOW SECOND IN LINE
. B
IT OF A SOCIAL CLIMBER, YOU MIGHT SAY
. He fumbled inside his robe and produced an hourglass in which black sand coursed between a spiked iron latticework. He gave it an experimental shake. A
ND DUE TO LIVE ANOTHER THIRTY, THIRTY-FIVE YEARS
, he said, with a sigh.

“And he goes around killing people?” said Mort. He shook his head. “There’s no justice.”

Death sighed. No, he said, handing his drink to a page who was surprised to find he was suddenly holding an empty glass, T
HERE’S JUST ME
.

He drew his sword, which had the same ice blue, shadow-thin blade as the scythe of office, and stepped forward.

“I thought you used the scythe,” whispered Mort.

K
INGS GET THE SWORD
, said Death. I
T’S A ROYAL WHATS-NAME, PREROGATIVE
.

His free hand thrust its bony digits beneath his robe again and brought out King Olerve’s glass. In the top half the last few grains of sand were huddling together.

P
AY CAREFUL ATTENTION
, said Death,
YOU MAY BE ASKED QUESTIONS AFTERWARDS
.

“Wait,” said Mort, wretchedly. “It’s not fair. Can’t you stop it?”

F
AIR
? said Death. W
HO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT FAIR
?

“Well, if the other man is such a—”

L
ISTEN
, said Death, F
AIR DOESN’T COME INTO IT
. Y
OU CAN’T TAKE SIDES
. G
OOD GRIEF
. W
HEN IT’S TIME, IT’S TIME
. T
HAT’S ALL THERE IS TO IT, BOY
.

“Mort,” moaned Mort, staring at the crowd.

And then he saw her. A random movement in the people opened up a channel between Mort and a slim, red-haired girl seated among a group of older women behind the king. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, being over-endowed in the freckle department and, frankly, rather on the skinny side. But the sight of her caused a shock that hot-wired Mort’s hindbrain and drove it all the way to the pit of his stomach, laughing nastily.

I
T’S TIME
, said Death, giving Mort a nudge with a sharp elbow. F
OLLOW ME
.

Death walked toward the king, weighing his sword in his hand. Mort blinked, and started to follow. The girl’s eyes met his for a second and immediately looked away—then swiveled back, dragging her head around, her mouth starting to open in an “o” of horror.

Mort’s backbone melted. He started to run towards the king.

“Look out!” he screamed. “You’re in great danger!”

And the world turned into treacle. It began to fill up with blue and purple shadows, like a heatstroke dream, and sound faded away until the roar of the court became distant and scritchy, like the music in someone else’s headphones. Mort saw Death standing companionably by the king, his eyes turned up towards—

—the minstrel gallery.

Mort saw the bowman, saw the bow, saw the bolt now winging through the air at the speed of a sick snail. Slow as it was, he couldn’t outrun it. It seemed like hours before he could bring his leaden legs under control, but finally he managed to get both feet to touch the floor at the same time and kicked away with all the apparent acceleration of continental drift.

As he twisted slowly through the air Death said, without rancor, I
T WON’T WORK, YOU KNOW
. I
T’S ONLY NATURAL THAT YOU SHOULD WANT TO TRY, BUT IT WON’T WORK
.